QUESTION: Along with receiving patents for developing the farming reaper, what other major invention did Cyrus McCormick receive credit for?A) The Cotton GinB) The PhonographC) Interchngeable partsD) All of the AboveE) None of the AboveANSWER BELOW

We return today to our lithographs displayed in the Toy Box and one for a man whose impact on the world was substantial, but who's name is rarely recognized. Cyrus McCormick.His patents for and production of mechanical reapers in the nineteenth century substantially increased grain output and improved farming technology. Of course, he did not do this in a vacuum. His father Robert developed a reaper in the 1820's that he tinkered with for years but never quite perfected. When Cyrus took the project over in 1831, he not only improved upon it, but patented and produced it. He sold one machines to a neighbor who, impressed with the notable improvements it made on his farm productivity, told his friends about it. Then they told their friends, and a business was made. The McCormick Harvesting Machine Company was in business.

Before long, Cyrus' brothers Leander and William joined him in expanding the family industry. They moved from the family farm in Virginia to the then-small outpost community on Lake Michigan of Chicago, Illinois in 1847, where they built a factory for reaper production and reached a wider customer base in the heartland of American agriculture. Cyrus excelled at production and, with his brilliant marketing and distribution practices, became one of the most successful businessmen of his age. He did not invent the horse-drawn McCormick mechanical reaper that became a necessity on every farm in the country. He did use his substantial skills to provide his clients with the reaper, which made him one of the nineteenth century's most powerful entrepreneurs, and that is what led to Cyrus McCormick's inclusion in the American Treasure Tour's wall of lithographs.